


shooting stars and satellites

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Reality, Angst, Dubious Consent, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Soul Bond, Where We Are Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:43:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is that what it says it's like?" Louis points vaguely to Niall's phone. He doesn't want to say the name of the thing.</p><p>"It says, um." Niall's mouth twists as he tries to figure out the words. “When you're bonded with someone, you’re <i>for</i> each other, after that. You’re -- like, you and me – you’d be the person I’m happiest with, all the time. Who I.” His toes curl on the tiled deck of the pool between their chairs. “Who, you know. Who I end up with.”</p><p>"Niall," Louis says, and has no idea where to go from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shooting stars and satellites

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colfield](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colfield/gifts).



> kelsey!! you wrote a great prompt about accidental soulbonding, where niall and louis start out not having Feelings for each other and have to grow into it worrying about if it's real or just the bond, etc. you said you'd prefer canon, so i went with tour fic as a setting. and as per your request, this is an eleanor-doesn't-exist fic. i've never tried writing bonding fic before, so i hope i managed this okay!!!! <333
> 
> huge thanks to my support group/prayer circle/garbage sisters who helped make this happen, you know who you are, AND OF COURSE to the illustrious mod squad for stepping up to do this and for putting up with my never-ending bullshit. love u all like xo.
> 
> title is from passenger seat by death cab. all the mistakes that probably made it into this are my own danged fault. and lastly: i tried to exercise an abundance of caution in warning for dubious consent, due to the accidental/involuntary nature of the soul bond. however, i don't personally feel consent is a major concern in this fic in the end. just a heads up!

∗

Louis wakes with a headache somewhere near the Ohio border. The shuddering of the bus beneath him feels like it's rattling his brain in his skull. He vocalizes his discomfort, loudly and without using any real words, and kicks at the curtain of his bed.

"What," says Zayn from down the aisle, in a tone that suggests there isn't really going to be an acceptable answer to the question.

"My head hurts," Louis replies. "Want you all to suffer with me, et cetera. Where's Niall?" It's somehow obvious to him that the answer is, _not on the bus._

"Gone, mate," comes Liam's sleepy voice from somewhere else. "Just for the day, I think. He had a physio thing."

"Check-up," Zayn clarifies. "He left early. Back tonight, though."

"Did he go all the way to London?"

"Nah, man. Denver."

"Hm," Louis grunts. None of them but him are questioning how he knew Niall was gone without having opened the curtains of his bunk or been awake since last night, when Niall was still here. When the two of them were sitting outside the bus together at a gas station, looking for stars in the smoggy sky.

Louis wonders at it, distantly and through the haze of pressure afflicting the space behind his eyes. They've all got that weird synced-up intuition about each other, though. Close quarters and stuff. Probably Niall's leaving changed the atmosphere or something and that's how Louis could tell. Maybe it'd even explain the headache.

"Anyway," Louis says, now that they're all awake, except, apparently, Harry, who if Louis remembers correctly did sleep on this bus last night but also sleeps like he's a corpse, so. "As I was saying. My head's fucking killing me, who's got painkillers?"

Some grumbling and rustling about, and then a bottle of pills of indeterminate origin hits the outside of his curtain with a whump. It falls to the floor, rattling, which gives Louis an excuse to complain some more as he reaches down for it. Niall would have handed it to him instead of just chucking it, he thinks, apropos of nothing.

He takes three of the pills and stuffs his head under his pillow and tries to go back to sleep. It's a losing battle, though, and he winds up in mostly a pissy staring contest with the dark inside wall until they roll on into Detroit.

∗

Niall's back for the show that night as promised. Louis has been miserable all day, dreading going on stage -- the lights, the noise, his head splitting down the middle. He's had bad headaches on tour before, not quite migraines but enough to be a fucking nuisance. But today's is a particular doozy, and also Louis likes to whine.

It's an hour and a half to showtime and he's alone in the dimly-lit dressing room when Niall slumps in, haggard and bright-eyed with fatigue.

"I'm cured!" he announces, and then he focuses in on Louis. "Oh, 's just you in here, is it?"

"Sorry to disappoint," Louis says, and he smiles for the first time all day, rotating in his chair to look at Niall standing there with his weight shifted onto his good leg. "You can use that joke again when there's more people about, if you like. I won't tell."

"Aw, thanks, man."

Niall's chair is across the room from Louis', and he settles down into it and starts to fuck around with the things on the counter. Louis watches the back of his head in the mirror. The silence is comfortable and only lasts a couple of minutes; Niall seems just to be getting his bearings before he goes off to get up to speed on the venue or whatever.

He stops at the door as he's leaving and looks back at Louis.

"Missed you," he says, smiling. It makes Louis smirk a little, but he doesn't say anything about how they spent less than a day apart.

"Missed you too, weirdo." It's true that it's always strange when someone buggers off in the middle of the tour, even for just a little while. He did miss Niall -- he kind of wants to hug him, actually, but the moment's passed.

"Okay," Niall says, like it's settled. "See you in a mo'."

"Yep." Louis watches him in the mirror, smiling off-kilter until the door shuts. His headache's gone; when had that happened? Endorphins or whatever they're called from a nice few minutes with Niall, or more likely the pills he's been popping have finally kicked in.

∗

The night before had been a good one -- the kind Louis likes to hang on to, likes to picture when he thinks about each of his friends. With Liam he remembers songwriting, quiet moments in quiet green rooms, them and Julian and everyone all spread out murmuring ideas and scribbling on each other's notepads. Zayn memories are in the Mystery Machine; Harry's, back at their old flat, years ago.

But with Niall he remembers stage things, mostly, and that feels odd sometimes -- as if there should be more to them than that, as if Niall's not getting his fair share.

The gas station outside Philly was a contender, though. It had started like this: Louis outside by himself, on the dark side of the bus, like a joke Harry'd make about Pink Floyd. The sky was swathed in an honest-to-god purple haze of smog, and Louis was a little stoned, trying to find any sign of stars up there. 

It was pretty dark on that part of the highway; the stars were back there somewhere, surely, but he was having trouble picking any out behind the parking lot lights and the slow-moving bands of cloud.

Niall appeared to his right, like a little ghost in a grey sweatshirt.

"Stargazing?" he asked.

Louis nodded. "Can't see shit, though," he said. Niall laughed and the motion of it brought them closer together, shoulders brushing in the night air, just a shade cooler than neutral.

"There," Niall said, pointing with his outside arm across Louis' body, above his head and outward. "Orion's belt, innit?"

"You and your star talk," Louis said, staring where Niall was pointing. Three bright stars in a line, peeking between two ribbons of cloud.

"There's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight," Niall said. "Did you know? Is that why you're out here?"

"Yeah, totally," Louis snorted. "Because I always know shit like that."

"Fair point." He smiled at Louis, close, and for a moment in Louis' stoned little mind there was nothing but the two of them, no space or reality outside the stars up above and him and Niall here on Earth.

They stayed leaning against the side of the bus, looking up, waiting for movement. It was taking forever to fuel up and, presumably, for Harry and Liam to make their snack choices inside the store, and Louis was feeling vividly lucky to share a moment like this with Niall -- to get to be out here with him in this alien American landscape in the middle of their tour, looking for shooting stars.

Finally Louis saw one. "There," he said, voice coming out a gasp. Niall's eyes followed his pointing finger. It was visible for a second, a fleeting little line-flash among fixed points. Then it was gone, leaving a momentary, bone-deep stillness in its wake.

Niall looked over at Louis, and his eyes kept doing this odd thing like they were trying to move away and couldn't. Or Louis felt that way, anyway, as he looked back at Niall -- he felt like they were stuck looking at each other, and also a bit like he couldn't breathe for just a second.

The bus rumbled to life against their backs, startling him. "Time to go," Niall said. His voice was small, strange. Louis stared at the back of his head as he followed him back on board, moving in Niall's wake like he was made to do it.

Niall didn't say he was leaving in the morning, and Louis woke with the headache and the good memory and the knowledge, inexplicable, that Niall had gone.

∗

In Detroit, Niall sleeps in the hotel after the first show and Louis stays on the bus. By the wee hours, the headache's come back with a vengeance. It's the weirdest fucking thing. He thinks of earlier, how Niall had seemed to cure him with just his presence in the dressing room, and then thinks it's stupid he's even drawing a correlation between the two, and then his head hurts even worse from all the thinking.

Painkillers don't help and neither does a cup of tea. Sharing a bowl with Zayn in the back lounge makes it worse, because once Louis is stoned all he can think about is the way his head feels and just a nagging, incorrigible sense of Niall's absence. There's a million other things he could be thinking about, and usually is thinking about. But these past couple days Niall's risen to the top.

It's not that Louis' bored of hanging out with Zayn on the bus, far from it. He hasn't exhausted the entertainment value of this, has no reason to switch friends. But something still makes him leave -- muttering a _see you in the morning_ around three a.m., stumbling to the door of the bus and across the back lot to the hotel, with the extra key to their big sprawling complex of a suite on the top floor, and into a lift and up.

He lets himself in with as little noise as possible and wanders room to room like a ghost, looking for signs of life. Paul's in one bedroom, asleep with his lamp on, and Harry's sprawled out on the couch in the TV-lit sitting room, snoring gently. The huge telly's playing the news on mute, blue light flickering over Harry's face, and the remote is on the floor just past his dangling fingers.

The door to the last bedroom's ajar, and Louis knows before he pushes it open that Niall's in there. He's hardly noticeable, just a breathing lump in the middle of the huge bed.

Louis creeps in and leaves his slippers by the door, takes off his joggers and his sweatshirt, climbs into Niall's bed in his boxers. He lifts the comforter gently, expecting Niall to wake, but he doesn't -- just stays curled up on his side, breathing shallowly. He's turned toward the half of the bed where Louis is stretching out, his hair all soft and fluffy, face open and boyish in sleep just like it is most of the rest of the time.

Louis lies still on his back with his arms by his sides and experiences a sudden upwelling of panic over being here. It's like he's sleepwalked from the bus to Niall's bed. He doesn't know why he did it. And there's no way that his headache's already lessening -- surely, he's imagining it. He inches closer to Niall, just into the edge of the space that smells warm and worn and clean, the way someone does when they've showered and settled and finally gone to sleep after a long day.

Niall's near to him now, and all of a sudden Louis wants to touch him, cuddle with him, very badly. But he doesn't want to wake him, either, so he stays on the periphery of doing it, watching Niall sleep, and feels the pain fade from his skull like he's drying out. He matches the rhythm of his breathing to Niall's, and eventually he shuts his eyes.

∗

"Hey, Lou. Hate to do this, but we got, like, twenty minutes."

Louis blinks awake one eye at a time, and flails mentally through a moment of utter confusion about where he is before he remembers. Niall's sat up in bed beside him, not touching him, just murmuring.

"Hey," Louis mumbles. "Sorry I'm, like, here."

"S'okay. You gave me a bit of a surprise when I woke up. Not a bad one, though."

Louis smiles a little, eyes closed again. "I had a headache," he says as if it explains anything.

"You know, me too," Niall says. He lies back down, arms behind his head. "Damndest thing. I had one all day yesterday when I was in Denver, too."

"Yeah?" Louis turns just his head to look at him. They've each got a pillow, with not quite enough space between them for another body.

Niall nods. "Gone by showtime, though. And it came back before I went to sleep, but it's gone again now. Whatever."

"Yeah," Louis says. He frowns a little. "I just… um, couldn't sleep on the bus. So… I came up here."

"Of course." Niall seems to take it as expected, which makes Louis wonder if he's making something out of nothing, feeling weird about it.

He goes on feeling weird, though, when he and Niall don't touch at all before he leaves the room. It's not like there's any great need to do so, but Louis is feeling hesitant about even normal, casual contact, like a hand at the small of Niall's back to guide him out the door or Niall's fingers brushing his shoulder, a reminder, _here we both are._

It's as if this manic little switch in his brain has flipped and he knows if he touches Niall at all, even a little, he won't want to stop. That's not an unfamiliar feeling -- Louis gravitates toward different people all the time, falls into ruts of wanting their attention and their company and closeness and then moves on. It's just come on a little strong this time, is all. It's scaring him a bit.

∗

It becomes a pattern before either of them realizes – gravitating toward sleeping together, gravitating toward each other on stage, in private, in groups. By the night of the show where it all starts to change, Louis hasn't laid a finger on Niall in three days -- and he's been counting, because it's been an effort not to do it. 

But it helps that Niall seems to get it -- he hasn't been tactile with Louis, either, but he's seemed happy to have his presence, glowing and grinning and when Louis says jump saying how high and all that. Like always, but more now, with greater purpose.

That night on stage Niall slips and goes down hard on his bad knee and Louis feels the pain of it flare all the way down to his bone. It’s shocking, how clear it comes through – how clearly linked it is. It's the most explicit sympathy pain he's ever felt, like Niall's knee is his own.

Narrowly, he stays on his feet, but he winces horribly, and he’s hobbling a bit as he crosses the stage to spot while the others help Niall up. He feels an irrational twinge that he wasn't closer, that he wasn't there to stop Niall falling.

The screaming in the audience has turned slightly panicked, and they have to laugh it all off into their microphones and get on with the show. Niall's rubbing over his own knee, biting his lip and managing a bit of banter with Liam about wet floors and how they ought to put out caution signs. He glances up at one point, meets Louis' eye, but if he can tell Louis is feeling his pain he doesn't show it.

∗

They're on the bus that night, heading south to Nashville. Louis is in the back lounge being an insomniac, edgy in a stupid way, one weed won't help. Everyone else crashed as soon as they got rolling, and he doesn't have it in him to wake them up, to do more than sit here wallowing. He plays a few fitful games of FIFA by himself, then sits there staring at it on pause, then turns it off completely. He wishes he felt tired.

After a while Niall slips through the door, barefoot and barechested and limping just a little, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He sits down next to Louis.

"Can't sleep," he mumbles. Louis' mouth twists.

"Yeah," he says. He's not sure why it's so hard to think around Niall, lately; the snarkiness he'd usually rely on to fill even a comfortable silence like this one has been replaced by this odd static, a distracting white noise.

Niall leans closer, curling in on himself with an elbow on the couch cushion and his feet tucked to the side. He looks up at Louis like he's trying to ask something without asking.

Louis sighs and finally, all out of reasons not to do it, reaches over to put his arm across Niall's shoulders.

The second his hand brushes Niall's bare skin, he knows why he's been scared to touch him the past few days. It feels like he's stuck his finger in a socket, a bright blooming spark that shoots all the way under his skin and through him and up the back of his neck. He's shocked into some other space for a moment, weightless with it, falling through nothing, and then it ends. He's snatched his hand back without realizing.

Niall's stiff and wide-eyed beside him; he hasn't moved but he's gaping up at Louis like he's just had the fright of his life.

"Did you feel that?" Louis asks, clearly unnecessarily, because Niall nods right away.

Louis hesitates, then reaches for him again. It doesn't shock him this time when they touch, but it does feel intensely, preternaturally wonderful. It's like Niall's the safest place he's ever been. Louis actually whimpers, he's so grateful to get to be close to that feeling. He wraps his arms around Niall's neck and flops down on top of him, face pushed into the crook of his shoulder.

The bus moves beneath them, and he feels Niall breathe out a little laugh, feels him loop his arms around Louis' back. He slips his hands under Louis' sweatshirt, running his fingers up and down his spine. Louis shivers and shuts his eyes.

"Feels good," he mumbles. He wants to lie on top of Niall like this forever. He could most easily describe the feeling as being the complete opposite of the headache he's had when they've been apart the past few days.

"But I don't…" Niall tries, and then, quieter, "What the hell is going on with us?" He's still stroking Louis' back. Louis shakes his head.

"Let's just sleep," he mutters, reaching out to find a pillow for Niall's head and shifting so he's sprawled more comfortably out on top of him. "Figure it out tomorrow."

"If you say so," Niall murmurs. His hands settle in Louis' hair and after that there's no more talking.

∗

They wind up curled together on the couch in the night, and Louis, the little spoon, wakes up first. His back feels cold as he slips out of the bracket of Niall's arms and stands, even though he's wearing a shirt. He sighs and pads off to the loo.

He's in the kitchenette making tea when he sees Niall get up, greeting him with a grunt and an upnod, and goes to piss as well. Then he comes out and leans against the cabinets opposite where Louis is fussing with the teaspoons.

"Morning," Niall says.

"Hiya. Sleep okay?"

"Yeah. Needed that. My bunk wasn't doing me any good."

Louis hums a bit in answer, stirring his tea. The silence is charged between them. Louis thinks of electricity, the feeling of touching Niall that first time.

He's just noting the space separating their bodies when Niall stretches out one bare foot and rubs his toes along Louis' calf, just gently, that same reminder: _I'm here, for you_. It's inordinately comforting. Louis smiles and doesn't say anything and wonders if he's losing his mind.

∗

"So, when you said figure it out tomorrow," Niall starts, at their private poolside later on. Zayn's in his room and Liam and Harry are swimming, or rather, Liam's swimming and Harry's failing to drown. Harry's doing something that might become swimming someday, when it evolves. And Niall, who'd usually be down there with him, is in a cabana chair next to Louis, squinting at something on his phone.

Louis closes his eyes behind his Ray-Bans, his arm dangling by the side of his chair. He wants Niall to take his hand but he's not about to ask for it.

"Mhm," he prompts, when Niall doesn't go on.

"Well, I did some research."

"Wait a minute." Louis sits up, shifting a quarter turn to face Niall properly. He hadn't actually been expecting a real explanation. He keeps his voice low as he says, "Research on what?”

“I think it might be... a soul bond?” Niall doesn't stop to let that sink in before he goes on. “There’s all these stories -- stuff like this happening after people seeing certain things together, like… omens."

Louis squints at him. "Stuff like what, exactly?"

"Like how it's been hard to be apart."

"It's always hard to be apart," Louis reasons hopefully.

"Yeah," Niall says, a worried edge to his voice, "but the touching thing."

Louis chews on his lip. "You felt that too," he says, not asking, just acknowledging.

"Yeah," Niall says. "And, like, when do you feel like it started?”

“I suppose... sometime after Philadelphia,” Louis says. "Whoa, hang on a minute. We saw that meteor.”

“Shooting star,” Niall confirms, a sweet correction. Louis laughs.

"This cannot possibly be a thing," he says. "You're having me on, aren't you, Niall? Tell me this isn't a thing."

"I thought you'd have heard of it," Niall says, giving a crooked smile. "You're the one who always talks about fate." Louis just stares at him, and he goes on, "Well, the internet says that after you see something like that with another person, sometimes, if, like, the circumstances are right and all -- after that, you’re, like, linked.”

“Linked,” Louis states. It's slipping off the surface of his brain, not catching. “So, like... soulmates?”

“But more, though,” Niall says. He’s peeling the label off his beer bottle, scratching at its corner with his thumbnail. “I mean… you can manage to not be with your soulmate. You might never even find them, and you'd be fine. This is, like." He swallows. "Mandatory? As in, it doesn't matter if you -- it doesn't matter what we were before. Because now we're … we have to be, um."

"Together," Louis murmurs. He's waiting for this to become ridiculous, but it's doing the opposite, slotting neatly and terrifyingly into all these little gaps in his understanding of how he's been feeling. "You know, I felt it when you hurt your knee," he mutters.

"You did?"

"Yeah." Panic is flaring irrationally in him, fed by Niall's anxiety bleeding out and under Louis' skin. “How can we tell, though? And -- I mean, what does it actually mean we have to do?”

Niall does a fidgety little shrug. "There's not a lot of information," he says. "Just -- stuff about touching, and the star stuff, and, like… the feel of it."

"How's it been feeling to you? Since Pennsylvania?"

"Like --" Niall starts, then lets out a shuddery breath. Harry and Liam have a beach ball in the pool now and are batting it back and forth, shouting at each other. Niall tries again, tilting his head down so the sun's out of his eyes. "It feels like when I'm near you, like I'm -- exactly where I need to be, kinda," he says. "Like I just -- I want -- I need to be there. With you."

"Is that what it says it's like?" Louis points vaguely to Niall's phone. He doesn't want to say the name of the thing.

"It says, um." Niall's mouth twists as he tries to figure out the words. “When you're bonded with someone, you’re _for_ each other, after that. You’re -- like, you and me – you’d be the person I’m happiest with, all the time. Who I.” His toes curl on the tiled deck of the pool between their chairs. “Who, you know. Who I end up with.”

"Niall," Louis says, and has no idea where to go from there.

Harry chooses that moment to loom up out of the water like a river monster, dripping and sun-warmed and overly tattooed.

"Time to eat," he announces, then troops off toward the exit. Liam's going, too, and their security, so Niall and Louis have to bring up the rear, glancing helplessly at each other. For a moment when no one's looking Niall reaches out and takes Louis' hand. Louis looks up sharply, but the relief in it is palpable -- he feels all the tension of the discovery, the conversation, leave his shoulders the moment Niall's fingers' twine through his. Their eyes meet, and Niall gives him a look, like, _what else can I do?_ before he lets go.

Louis is in freefall all the way through the rest of the day, and the show is something else entirely. It's all at once like Niall really is magical, this beacon across stage. Louis navigates to him like a moth, grinning like a goddamn idiot as he talks to Niall on-mic about cowboys and country music and how they're having so much fun on the American leg so far, aren't they? _We sure are, Neil_. Usually it's the screams that fuel them laughing with each other and touching and hamming it up, but Louis can tell tonight that the arena could be empty and he'd still want to drag Niall into his arms for a noogie, would want to hug him and bury his nose in his hair.

"I can't tell if we're, like, more _on_ than normal," he says into Niall's ear while Harry leads everyone in a rousing chorus of "we can see you in the back." 

"I know," Niall says, fiddling with his in-ear. They're very close, heads bent together. He laughs, shaking his head. "I can't help it." 

"Me neither." Louis has to stop his lips actually brushing Niall's ear, and he puts a steadying hand on his hip anyway, because that's normal, and allowed, and not a symptom of all this uncontrollable star-crossed affection. 

"D'you think they can tell?"

"Mate, they don't fucking care." 

Niall laughs again, which makes Louis grin. "Fine," Niall says. "Fuck it." He gives Louis a high five and bounds away to swap guitars. 

Louis watches him go, resting on the rail in the center of the runway and trying not to let his smile look pained. He can't help but second-guess every way he's acting toward Niall now, stuff he never would have thought twice about. All these smiles, this closeness, wondering if it's coming from them or something else. 

He's still wondering hours later, when they've all gone their separate ways after the show. There's days until Houston and they're staying in Tennessee for tonight, and Niall's soft knock on Louis' hotel door is entirely expected. They crawl into bed together, and Louis wants to ask him about it. But Niall stretches out against him and slips his hands around Louis' bare sides and shuts his eyes without saying a word. 

∗

It's like the floodgates open after that; every second of the day, Louis is aware how things are different now with Niall. He gets this glowy warm feeling when they're near each other, like an overtone, something purring on the perfect frequency in his chest. It's unsettling and not normal and he wants it all the time.

One of the many weird parts is that nothing external has changed much. They're a little clingier than usual, but no one seems to notice.

But Louis can feel now that he's drawn to Niall, taking a kind of comfort in his presence that's unlike anything he's felt before. He catches Niall's eye all the time, across the stage, in little interviews, and when Niall smiles back at him it's a gift, something precious just for him. 

They're playing football in a car park in Chicago, just the two of them, biding time until their flights out for the little mid-tour break. Louis can't tell if the others have picked up on it all and that's why he seems to be getting more alone time with Niall lately, or if it's him doing that, or if it's his imagination. He's feeling a bit of mistrust toward his own grip on reality at the moment. 

"D'you think we're gonna be okay?" Niall asks, from a distance. It's a strange thing to hear said at volume, echoing off concrete. Louis stops the ball rolling toward him under one foot and considers. 

"How d'you mean?"

Niall jogs in a fretful little circle, bending his knees, and Louis' eyes follow like they're magnetized. 

"The headaches and all." 

"I think it's been better," Louis says. "I mean, I've gotten used to it, a bit. But we've also… you know. Been together a lot. Since."

"Yeah." Niall ambles over to him and kicks the ball out from under his toes, dribbling it aimlessly. Louis hipchecks him, just for the sake of the contact, and steals the ball. 

"But aren't you kinda, y'know," Niall says, with difficulty, "scared?"

The ball skitters out of Louis' reach on a badly timed kick. He watches it rebound off a parked SUV, one of their own chartered fleet.

"I dunno," he says. "D'you think there is something to be scared of?"

It's not that he doesn't. But he trusts Niall to explain it better. 

"I mean, this," Niall says, gesturing fitfully between them. "Us. Having to… do this."

"Yeah," Louis says. He sinks down against a pillar and Niall follows him like a shadow, sliding down to the ground beside him and stretching out his bad knee. Louis feels the ache of it, distant, absent, in his own muscles.

"I'm just scared of not knowing," he says softly. "And -- feeling all this and, just, not knowing what to believe, you know."

Niall smiles a little, not meeting Louis' eye." At least it wasn't with a stranger," he says. "Jesus, can you imagine that? Being in the street and happening to glance up at the same time as someone near you and, bang. That's." He chews on his lower lip. "That's your life." 

Louis laughs, just to cut the tension. "God, or a fan." He nudges Niall's knee with his own. "You can laugh, Nialler, we've managed to avoid that particular disaster." 

So Niall does laugh, and then harder, and they just sit there on the ground giggling with their legs pressed together. It feels like progress, and Louis tries to believe in that, tries to remember how he's privately so fucking grateful that this happened with Niall and not anybody else. He hasn't worked out how to say that yet, or what it means for where they go from here. But it feels important. It feels like a safety net beneath the vast empty space they've been thrust into -- together, at least that. 

∗

Their goodbye is normal. Louis watches Niall go and tries to shelve the sense of foreboding he feels, tries as hard as he can to pretend he doesn't know or think anything's different and see if the feeling's still there. It remains, a nagging ache in the pit of his stomach. 

"You alright, mate?" Liam asks him after, peering from behind the sunglasses he's been wearing in and outdoors basically since his birthday. Louis suspects he may never stop being hungover again. 

"Yeah," he says, too dismissively.

"Separation anxiety?" Liam asks knowingly. Louis frowns at him.

"With Niall?" It's not meant to be a joke, but it comes out forced, landing like a laugh track should follow. Liam smiles, uncertain.

"I mean, yeah," he says. "You guys have been tight lately, I mean, it's no big deal."

Louis shrugs irritably and turns away. Niall's been gone two minutes and he's already miserable. 

∗

He finds himself in London a week later, before his charity match in Glasgow. The days since Chicago have passed in a haggard fog, peppered with bright spots: texts and calls and FaceTimes to Niall, a little guilty like they should be fighting it. Louis hates this for throwing them off their usually easy camaraderie. But it hurts not to be with Niall, not to have him near, in a way that goes beyond the headaches and the distraction. It's soul-deep and depressing. Louis doesn't know what they're going to do.

But he winds up at Niall's early birthday party like it's not patently bizarre for him to show up when none of the rest are there, when they're not even really meant to be on this side of the Atlantic right now. He and Niall don't do this kind of thing. He hovers around the fringes, drinking and chatting to Niall's friends, making warm fuzzy eye contact with him across the bar. 

There are plenty of pretty girls here, and no shortage of pretty boys, either. Louis assesses them, feeling edgy. Eventually he decides to leave, earlier than most -- it's easier to go home than to keep trying and failing not to monopolize Niall's time at his own party with his own mates. 

He catches Niall by the stereo before walking out, trying to be gentle and subtle but ending up all in Niall's space. 

"D'you wanna come over to mine after?" he asks in his ear. Niall's cheek is warm, close to Louis', and his mouth is wet and open. Louis can smell the liquor on him, and the cologne. 

"Yeah, okay," Niall says, gaping a bit. "You're at your house?" 

"Yeah."

"I'll see you there," Niall says. He's frozen for a second and then pulls Louis into a hug, as if he forgot that's what they would have done without a second thought in this situation a month ago. Louis holds him tight, noses into his neck, then pulls back and claps him manfully on the shoulder. 

"Enjoy yourself," he says, winking, and then he goes, leaving Niall standing alone. 

At home, he has another lime-drowned vodka tonic and waits up, irrationally nervous and a little drunk. He's got to wake up early and play football in front of loads of famous people tomorrow and still, it's the prospect of Niall coming over that's making him itch. 

"It's past your bedtime, innit?" Niall confirms when he finally shows up, going on two a.m. His soft disapproving clucking sound comes out drunk and ridiculous, though, and it makes Louis smile, warming the tips of his fingers and the places he's been cold despite the liquor. 

They curl up on the couch in the den with a beer each, just looking at each other. There's something about being like this here, away from tour, away from where it started, that makes it feel much more real -- stripped of all its trappings and left out in the open between them. 

"It's been, like, three weeks," Niall says. His voice is little more than a low, eliding purr. The room is only dimly lit, and Niall's soft-edged on the opposite end of the couch. He and Louis are touching only at their feet, jumbled together in the center. 

"Crazy," Louis says. "Feels like forever."

"I know," Niall says. "D'you reckon we need to, like, test it? To …make sure, or."

"How d'you think we should do that?"

"I was thinking… y'know, about seeing what it's like to try to, um. Try being with someone else."

"Absolutely not," Louis says, before he's even considered what he's saying no to.

"And see how that feels," Niall finishes, frowning. "Don't you wanna know, though?"

"I dunno," Louis mutters. "I don't like the idea of it." 

"Can we put a name on that?" Niall asks, suddenly a little sharp, the slight slur of his voice cutting through the room. "Is _it_ sleeping with other people, or -- what, having feelings for someone? Or, I don't know."

"You're the one who's done the research," Louis says. He's being churlish; Niall showed him everything he read. "And it was your idea."

"I'm just." Niall rubs his temples. He's being more patient than Louis deserves, which is only making Louis feel more bitter about the whole thing. It's not fair that Niall's the one who has to deal with this. With him. "I'm just thinking, that if there was even someone either of us could consider, like, in that way. However that made us feel about each other might… tell us something."

"D'you have someone like that?"

"That's the weird part," Niall murmurs. "I know I must have. But I can't remember now. I can't think of anyone."

"Yeah," Louis says. There's a moment of stillness then, the rancor gone out of the conversation as quickly as it came. When Louis scans through people he could reasonably be expected to want to sleep with or have a relationship with -- friends of friends, ex-girlfriends, random hot people he's seen in the past 24 hours -- all of them feel like drawing a blank. Like the feelings or the possibility of them should be there and aren't.

"It's just you," Niall says, eyes lifting to meet Louis'. They always go soft when he's looking at him, all that endless fondness. It's always frightened Louis a little, well before this, feeling like there's no way he deserves Niall's earnestness or all the sweet little things they have in common.

He doesn't know what frightens him so much about the idea of _loving_ Niall, being _in love_ and not just loving him like normal -- the idea of _being with_ him. It's not even the prospect of sex -- that seems easy, good even compared to the permanence and the seriousness, which have never been their style. Louis has seen more now of what serious looks like on him and Niall, and while it's not bad or even uncomfortable precisely, it's still a weight.

"That feeling," Louis starts carefully. "Like we're -- supposed to be together now. I mean, we've never -- how do we even know it's real? How can we… just be expected to jump into that, and, and damn the consequences?"

Niall gives a hollow laugh that sounds alien coming out of his mouth. "Isn't that how it always is? Just 'cause it's come from this, I mean -- who's to say it's not just … an opportunity, y'know?" He pronounces the word very carefully. He's shredding the edge of the label of his beer with nervous, delicate fingers, like he plays guitar, all careful thin precision.

"But we're just mates," Louis says, very quietly. He doesn't want his and Niall's utter normalcy to fall apart because of this, though it's probably already too late for that. But it isn't fair. He likes that normalcy, relies on it when everything else is fucking up. That's why it's normal.

The look Niall gives him next is one of the worst things Louis has ever felt -- like he's barely keeping himself from crumbling, angry and hurt and scared, and Louis has a moment where he knows there's no limit to what he'll do to make sure Niall never looks at him like that again.

"Look," Niall says, "I'm sure you could be with someone else, and live with it. I'm sure we could figure out a way to handle that. To -- to get by without it." He says _it_ , Louis thinks, where he should say _you_.

"Is that what you want?" Louis asks, a bit meekly.

"Is it what _you_ want?" Niall shoots back. "You can say it. You clearly want to, so better now than later."

"I don't know, Nialler, I'm just--"

"Is it really such a terrible thought to be stuck with me? Is it -- am I not even an option?" He looks away, coloring, like he's suddenly remembered he's drunk and saying too much. It all makes Louis feels completely gutted. 

"No, Niall, no," he says, throat tight. "I just -- I do wanna be sure, but… God. I don't know."

"This is real, isn't it?" Niall asks him. "You really feel it? No way we're fucking with ourselves, or anything?"

"It's real," Louis murmurs. He knows it is, on the core-deep level where you would know a thing like that. But it's easier said than put into practice.

"Things do just happen, Lou," Niall says, addressing himself to his mostly empty beer. "Feelings just change. Not so different, this. Except for the part where we can't say no to it, but." His mouth twists, and he looks up at Louis, all flushed and tired and out of his depth. "Dunno that I wanna say no, anyway. Even if it's … whatever. Artificial, or, I don't know. Don't know that I care, in the end." 

Louis licks his lips. "Yeah," he says. "Dunno if I do, either." And he doesn't know if it's true or if it's the bond talking or what the difference even is. All he knows is that he's in so far over his head with this that it feels like drowning every moment, except when he's looking at Niall.

He tucks his knees under him and tips forward, crawling across the couch until he's almost in Niall's lap. It takes a tremendous effort to say what comes next, but if he's got anyone who deserves his effort like that, it's Niall. 

"I don't wanna give up on you," he whispers. 

"Me neither." Niall shuts his eyes. "I'm sorry I was angry, back there, I just." 

"It's okay. It's hard." 

Niall lets out a harsh sigh, and then looks up at Louis, all close and alone, finally, with nothing to distract them from this. 

"Are you gonna come and kiss me now, then?" he asks. And it's the hint of a smile on his mouth that finally makes Louis do it. 

He cups Niall's cheek and Niall nuzzles into it, eyes slipping shut, and then Louis presses their mouths together. The kiss is soft and sweet, both of them tasting beery and tired, and Louis melts into it, tipping forward into Niall's space until he's curled in his lap. His fingers in Niall's hair, Niall's hands playing over his back, the slickness of his mouth and how whenever they pull back, just a little, to change angles, his eyes are open, fixed on Louis' face. If Louis didn't know it already, it's so obvious now, clearer than anything: that he needs Niall like this, is going to need him, that this is here to stay.

They kiss for a long time, not going much of anywhere with it, just tangled together with Louis half on top. The kiss is a safer space than anywhere else Louis could be. He wants to live in Niall, a little, a drunk thought that doesn't make a lot of sense but feels very true. Niall licks so gently into his mouth that Louis barely notices it's happening, opens for him, kisses him syrup-slow and mostly silent until his jaw aches. 

They just breathe together when it ends, Louis' eyes still closed, their cheeks pressed together. 

"Come to bed," he murmurs, nosing at Niall's ear, "and let's just talk, can we just do that?"

Niall sighs out his name, a long relief of a sound, like finally resting after a long ordeal. "Yeah," he says. "That sounds good." 

In Louis' bed, under the sheets, they lie together and touch at odd places, talking and talking until they're both hoarse and nearly sober. They talk about what they look for in a person, in a relationship, and Louis quietly lines up all the things he and Niall have with those criteria. Niall talks about having known he's gay for years, like that's the least of their worries. It's convenient, if nothing else. Louis still isn't sure about himself. He tells Niall that, tells him stuff he's hardly told anyone before, talks about figuring it all out and being scared.

They talk about the future and what they want to do after the band in a way they haven't done before, because now it's not just each of their lives that matters, it's the idea of life together. Louis tries to picture the two of them, pushes back all his boundaries and resistance and thinks of them getting married, growing old. He thinks about Love with a capital L and how this vulnerable, aching version of Niall lying in his bed isn't one he'd known existed. 

"Okay," Niall says after a while. "I've got one, but you have to promise not to make fun of me." 

"Who, me?" Louis grins, rubbing an absent circle into the dip of Niall's ribs with his thumb. 

"Okay," Niall says again. "Had you ever -- like, thought about this? With us -- I mean, me, before?" 

Louis frowns. "No, honestly," he murmurs. If that stings at all Niall doesn't let it show.

"That's cool," he says quickly, before Louis can think of how to elaborate in a way that isn't horrible. "I did, once, for a while. Long time ago. Like, X-Factor." He hiccups, adorably. "It went away, eventually. Been off my mind for ages when all this started happening." 

"I don't know if I should be honored or offended."

"It doesn't matter," Niall says, shrugging against Louis' mattress. "Anyway, it's been pretty easy, like, falling back into it." And then he smiles and ducks his head. He's so much himself, even in this, so relatively unfazed. Like Louis is the easiest thing, like there's no trouble in just letting this happen. 

"What'd you like about me, then?" Louis asks, trying for coy and ending up with shy. Niall grins. 

"You were cool," he says. "And funny. And, like, hot." He looks away again, pink-cheeked. 

"Yeah," Louis sighs. "Those were the days." 

"Oh, for sure," Niall laughs. "Well past our primes, we are." He looks over Louis' face, touches the curve of his shoulder, his collarbone, thumbs at the lines of _it is what it is._

"Nah," he says after a while, on his own train of thought, "it was the same stuff then as it is now." A beat, and he goes on, "Like I said. Hasn't been the worst thing, having to do this." 

Louis can't bring himself to admit he feels the same, to say it's all made him wonder how he didn't think of Niall this way years ago. He can kiss Niall, though -- for some reason, that's easier. So he does. The bond is like an aura all around them -- this invisible force trying to jam them into each other, two puzzle pieces that want to fit but haven't quite managed it yet. Louis can feel it as they press close, like the physicality of it can wear their edges down into something matched. He's starting to believe that it can.

They fall asleep nestled into each other, Niall's chest against Louis' back with his arm around his side and their knees folded together. 

∗

Louis' meant to leave for Glasgow in the morning, but when he wakes with Niall wrapped around him, doing so seems like a very distant possibility. They won't see each other again for days after this. 

He slides a hand down Niall's bare side, gives him a gentle little shake. "Hey, Nialler," he murmurs. Niall stirs but doesn't open his eyes, his face turned toward Louis. Louis thinks he's probably pretending. He knows what Niall's fishing for, and he rolls his eyes a little, smiling. 

"Niall," he whispers, and he leans in to brush a kiss over Niall's lips. Niall's awake at once, the faking bastard, murmuring something incoherent into Louis' mouth, kissing him back. 

Their arms are still around each other -- judging by the temperature outside the blankets, Niall seems to have gotten up and turned the air conditioning up in the night rather than forego the contact -- and it turns into actual making out pretty quickly. They're both still half-asleep with no inhibitions. 

Niall gives a breathless little moan that sends a thrill down Louis' spine when Louis grips his hips and hauls him in closer. "I don't want you to go," he says suddenly, then grins mindlessly like he hadn't meant for the words to get out. "Jesus Christ, what's happened to us?"

"I'm not going anywhere yet," Louis says. He pulls back until Niall's on top of him, dizzy with waking up like this, with how suddenly he wants it. It's like the kiss before sleeping opened a door that had been part of this all along. "D'you want--" he starts, but Niall's thigh is already between his legs. 

He ruts ineffectually into Louis for a moment, grimacing, before the angle goes right and the join of his hip, clothed in borrowed boxers, presses up into Louis' half-hard dick, and Louis can feel Niall, too, the hot line of him pressed against the inside of Louis' thigh below his shorts. "Oh," he breathes, "god," and then Niall rolls his hips up again, grinds into him, and Louis drops his head back. "Fuck," he bites out. The feeling is amplified, brilliant, shared between them like pain or anxiety or anything strong, and a million times better. Louis can't believe they didn't think of it sooner. 

"I know," Niall grunts, like he knows just what's on Louis' mind. "Fuck, yeah." He pulls Louis tighter to him, one hand clutching in his hair, the other at his hip. "I know you're on a tight schedule," he says, and the most absurd, wonderful thing about Niall is that he's mostly not being funny and is probably actually keeping that in mind, an _everyone's best interests at heart_ sort of thing. Louis rewards him with a kiss. 

There's teeth in it this time, Niall's, bared on little moans like he can't help it as he fucks against Louis' hip. Louis is being rutted up against the bed every time Niall moves, his head spinning, riding with it. They're slick with sweat between their bodies and the sheets are slipping down Niall's bare back. Louis doesn't even care about getting their boxers off anymore, doesn't want to stop. 

"C'mon," he gasps. His legs are locked with Niall's and he pulls him in closer, bending his knees to make room. Everything's trembling on the edge of this, the hot, unrelenting rhythm of Niall pressing into him, the bright thrum of what Niall's feeling. Niall's lips at the corner of his mouth, his hips rocking up and up and up. Louis is going to come far sooner than he ought to and he's too lazy with the morning and blindsided by this to try and stop it. 

Niall lets out a whimper and his fingers tighten in Louis' hair, his thighs shaking, and his hips thrust up, once, hard, as he comes. The feeling of his orgasm lances through Louis, and he moans helplessly, hips bucking up. He follows in seconds, irresistibly, like it's part of how they're bound. 

They tremble against each other for too long after, sticky in their shorts and with sweat on their chests pressed together. It's surreal have Niall on top of him like this with the clear thin light of morning seeking in the windows. _Like that's the weirdest part_ , Louis thinks suddenly, and he laughs out loud.

"What?" Niall rolls off him by half and curls around his side, still breathing a little heavily. He presses an absent kiss to Louis' shoulder, the same way he takes his hand by the little finger when no one's watching. 

"Nothing." He hides his smile, feeling happily overheated and spent. "That was fun." 

"It was," Niall sighs. "Hope I didn't make you late."

Louis turns to nose into Niall's temple. "Worth it," he murmurs. 

The smile Niall tries to hide at that is soft and twinkling and perfect, and Louis has another flash of it, that this is something he's been given, a gift to keep forever. He's not naive enough to think that all the scary parts are over, but right now, he feels like there's no one who could take it on better than them.

∗

They all come back for shows again, and Niall's actual birthday. Being with him after a few days' extra separation feels like falling seamlessly into step, as easy as breathing. 

The end of tour's coming up in less than a month, and single releases and shit for the book and the new movie and not one fucking minute of rest. Louis would be grumpy, probably, if not for Niall. Before all this he'd have been grumpy in spite of him. Now when Louis is starting to get irritable Niall will sidle up out of nowhere and slip his fingers into the pocket of Louis' jeans all quiet and casual, or sling an arm around his shoulders and not let go until the tension leaves him. Sometimes he'll just ask to borrow Louis for a moment and take him to a nice dark corner and kiss him until he forgets everything else. It's got to be mostly the bond that's making Louis go with it all so easily, or else he's not sure what to call this, but either way he can't bring himself to mind.

Probably the bit that stays surprising in the end is that Louis could spend more than three years with this boy and think he knew everything about him and still be able to see him anew, like one extra stage light's been turned on and suddenly all Niall's angles and shadows and bright parts are illuminated in ways Louis has never been able to see before.

He learns to recognize new patterns and unspoken things on Niall's face, like how he looks when he's holding something back, when he's annoyed at himself, when he's homesick. He learns what Niall's claustrophobia feels like, learns what it's like to be Niall and have a hangover, in Vegas, which totally shatters how cute he is after turning 21. He learns that he calls his Da more often than he lets any of them see.

He learns that there's more to Niall than he even knew at their closest before this, that there's infinities in him, inexhaustible wells of resilience and determination, and others of insecurity, of anxiety, of shyness, that only Louis gets to know.

Most of all he learns that this might be okay, to be stuck with Niall forever -- that there are far worse fates than a boy who, after everything, still gives him the same moony smile and double thumbs up from across the stage each night. A boy who laughs at Louis' jokes and listens to him, patient when he needs to be, demanding when he doesn't, and who always goes breathless at Louis' touch.

They stay fooling around after London -- the impromptu morning sex saved them from having to navigate that hurdle deliberately -- but Louis still isn't sure about pushing it further. He wants to, badly, but something about the thought of asking makes him insanely nervous too. As though anything he could do at this point could scare Niall off. 

It's the night before the very last show in Miami and they're alone in Niall's room. For a while, wanting to just be together had eclipsed Louis' general insistence on being included in everyone else's activities, to a shitty degree, one where they finally had to wake up and start hanging out with the collective again. It's been better, past couple weeks, balancing being social with the little ticker in Louis' brain that reads _NiallNiallNiall_ on a constant scroll. Still, no one's caught on to any change -- with the possible exception of Zayn, but he's had either the grace or the disinterest not to ask. 

Either way, Louis wanted Niall to himself tonight, one last time. After tour ends is this looming empty space, where he doesn't know what happens to the two of them, to this. Niall's sprawled out half against his chest in bed, shirtless, watching football highlights. They've showered but it's not late yet, and Louis has gathered his courage. 

"I've been thinking," he says as lightly as possible. "We should consummate this thing before the tour ends, don't you reckon?" 

"What?" 

"Like..." He threads a hand through Niall's hair, scratching a bit at his scalp. Niall hums. 

"Did you say consummate?" he asks before Louis can continue. 

"Maybe."

Niall sits up, propped on one arm and twisted to look Louis in the eye. 

"Thought we had," he says carefully. Louis licks his lips. 

"Yeah, but."

Niall's eyes roam around Louis' face, down his body and back up. There's the barest hint of something sharp in his face that he surely picked up from Louis, but it's couched in that soft Niall easiness. Niall's bite is rarely more than gentle, no matter how he seems. Louis likes that about him, so much. 

"All the way, as the kids say," Louis elaborates, bolder than he feels. Niall blinks at him, slow. 

"Ask me for it," he murmurs, "or tell me to." 

Louis skin is hot with the way Niall's voice has dropped, with the way they're barely touching, the telly still playing ESPN FC at volume. He shudders a little. Nobody disarms him quite like Niall. 

He whines a bit, a petulant nothing-noise, and when Niall keeps waiting, he swallows hard. "D'you wanna -- will you -- just fuck me, maybe," he whispers. Not quite a question or a command or really much of anything. 

Niall's grin then is unexpected, all teeth. "Jesus. Yeah, of course I want to. _Jesus_ ," he repeats, with feeling. "Now?" 

Louis laughs. "May as well," he says, exhaling all his nerves as he leans in to knock his forehead against Niall's, then kiss him, easy as that.

Niall's still grinning, one hand going to Louis' jaw, cupping it sweetly as he tries to kiss back and smile at the same time. "I love this," he mumbles, "getting to do this with you." 

Louis feels his blood spike at that, helpless. "Yeah," he says against Niall's lips, a meager riposte, all he can manage. Niall is too patient with his stupid fucking inability to say it all out loud. 

He lets Niall dip him to the bed, kissing him slow and deep, sucking and biting at his lower lip until it stings. He's breathless already, hands around Niall's back and in his hair, when Niall slips a hand between his legs. 

"D'you wanna get a little naked first?" he asks, grinning and gasping as Niall nudges the heel of his hand against his semi. 

"Yeah." Niall laughs. "Should get, like, stuff out now, if --" He pulls away and rolls to the edge of the bed. "Get your kit off," he says over his shoulder, but Louis is already on it. 

It's easy, at this point, to forget that the circumstances that brought them here weren't normal. Louis is aware of that as he undresses, watching Niall root around in his bag and feeling bereft even to stop touching him for a moment once he's started, as if it's something vital. Maybe it is. 

Niall's back in short order, though, dropping condom and lube on the mattress, shucking his joggers at the foot of the bed and crawling between Louis' legs, spread carelessly. There's a flush creeping up both their chests. Louis spreads his hands over Niall's skin, holding him beneath his armpits and rubbing at his nipples with both thumbs until Niall goes shuddery above him. He looms into Louis' space, pale and skinny and perfect. 

"Lemme suck you off," Louis says, totally unplanned. "C'mere." 

"Okay, okay," Niall laughs as Louis pulls him forward at the hips, sinking down so just his shoulders are pressed into the pillows and Niall's straddling his chest. Niall holds the distinct honor of being Louis' first and -- he thinks it with a little somersault in his chest -- _last_ anything with a boy, but they've done this a few times now. Niall loves giving head and that makes Louis love it too, makes him love the shaky little sigh that pushes between Niall's lips when he sucks the head of his cock into his mouth, love how he tastes and how good it feels to have the weight of Niall's hand on his shoulder, steadying himself, anchoring them both. 

Louis holds him by one hip and fists the base of his cock with his other hand, pumps it a few times to get him harder before sucking him back down. He can't take much at this angle but tries to make up for it by letting his mouth go sloppy, drooling over Niall's dick until Niall's thighs are shaking on either side of his body.

"Fuck," he mumbles, "you're too good with that mouth, Tommo." He reaches out and drags his index finger along Louis' bottom lip where it's wet and stretched around his cock, and Louis hums his acknowledgment. 

"You still want me to fuck you, then?" Niall asks in a strained voice. "Could let you do this all night, but, I mean." 

Louis pulls off with a pop, looking up at Niall trembling over him. "Yeah." His voice comes out absurdly rough. Niall's cock is bobbing, blurry, in the fore of his vision, shining with spit, and Louis has a dizzying flash of Niall coming on his face like this. It makes his dick twitch. It feels sometimes like they can't get to everything he wants to do fast enough, even though in actuality they have forever. 

Niall crawls down his body, takes the weight off his bad knee and curls up between Louis' legs. "Gonna make it good for you," he murmurs, eyes bright against his flushed skin. "You haven't, right?" 

"You know I haven't."

"Have you fingered yourself?"

Louis' breath hitches. "Sometimes, yeah." Something in him can't let Niall see how much he wants this, still can't give himself away. 

Niall wets his lips. "D'you want me to lick you out, maybe?" 

"Oh, my god."

"You said consummate," Niall says, grinning, impossibly flushed. "Go big or go home, I say. My friend Louis Tomlinson taught me that." 

"Yeah," Louis says, laughing and hiccuping with nerves and lack of breath, "yeah, yes, whatever you want." 

"Do _you_ want it?" Niall asks. He licks his lips again, and Louis watches the flash of his pink tongue, imagines it up his arse before Niall's dick. 

"I... yeah," he says, skin burning, toes curling behind Niall's back. 

"Then turn over, babe." Louis groans and complies, groans again as he feels Niall run his hands over the swell of his arse, kneading, spreading his cheeks. He folds his arms under his head, shuts his eyes, his hard-on pressed into the mattress. 

"Easy," Niall breathes, shockingly close, and then he flicks his tongue against Louis' rim. Louis lets out an unmanly squeak in surprise, and then a low moan as Niall licks a circle around him, presses a wet kiss to his hole. He licks him like Louis would a girl, little sharp laps of his tongue, sucking and nibbling and driving Louis insane before he's even inside him. Louis' hips fuck against the bed, back onto Niall's face, mindless. He feels like he's been hard for years, and Niall's still going to fuck him after. 

"C'mon," he chokes out, shoving his hips back. Niall grips his arse tighter with both hands and pushes his tongue in, finally, starts to lick him open. It's intensely weird and new and so good, pulling the heat up under Louis' skin like he's going to burn up at the seams. He slides his hands under the pillows, grips the sheets, presses his face into the bed to muffle a sob. 

"Is it okay?" Niall's voice is raw and a little desperate.

"Yeah," Louis manages, "Jesus shitting Christ, Niall." 

"Think you might have to ride me," Niall says, muffled, in between stretches of fucking Louis with his tongue, "my knee's not really feeling up for the task here." 

"Okay," Louis says automatically, rolling his hips against the bed. Niall might just as easily have told him to walk naked into the hotel bar and his answer would have been the same, at this point. "Niall, you can't -- I can't--" His voice breaks into a helpless little moan as Niall's tongue thrusts into him again, and again. 

"Ready for fingers, yeah?" Niall asks. He's being very game directing everything but the tremor in his voice gives him away. 

"Yeah," Louis says. "Fucking hell, how are you so good at that?" 

Niall kisses the small of his back. "I like it," he says. "I like you. It works." 

Louis has to turn over then, reaching out blindly. "Come here," he demands. "I've gone completely mental, because I wanna kiss you right now when your tongue's just been up my arse, but _Niall_ \--" 

Niall drops into his arms, folded in Louis' lap now, kissing him entirely sweet and pliant like he hadn't just been the one with Louis writhing under his tongue. He fumbles for the lube while they kiss, pushes Louis' legs apart. 

"I'm not gonna be long here," Louis warns, shivering as one slick, cold finger rubs over his still-throbbing, spit-wet rim. "Ah, fuck," he sighs. Niall watches his face as he pushes that finger in. It goes easily enough and the second one's not bad either, but Louis isn't differentiating between new and familiar sensations anymore, entirely lost in Niall and the heat and smell of him and the places they're touching and the way their eyes can't seem to stop locking together. It's hard to tell at this point what he's feeling, and what Niall is, and what's getting blurred and compounded between them. 

Louis moans embarrassingly loud when Niall's fingertips stroke over his prostate, then again. He squeezes his eyes shut, sees sparks. Niall steadies him with a hand on his hip and presses closer as Louis curls in on himself, shaking. 

"This is so much, Niall," he gasps. 

"Too much?"

"No, no," and then Niall tucks a third finger in with the first two and Louis has to arch his back down into the burn of it to keep from coming, legs splayed, his head thrown back. 

"Can't wait to actually fuck you," Niall mumbles, mouthing wetly at Louis' chest, scissoring his fingers. "Love feeling all this while you're feeling it. And," he laughs shakily, like he can't believe it. "Your perfect arse, Lou." 

"Do it then," Louis pants. "I'm ready, I -- I need it." He shivers. "Niall." 

Niall's eyes rake down his body for a moment, and Louis' never felt more laid bare, vulnerable to Niall and this and the bond like an open wound. 

The moment breaks but lingers under his skin as they switch places, Niall on his back and Louis astride his hips, slippery with lube. He presses his thumbs into Niall's narrow hips while Niall reaches for the condom, tears it open, rolls it onto himself. 

"D'you reckon it'll always be like this?" he asks, eyes fixed on Louis' face as if he's all that exists.

"Like what?"

"Just -- intense." Niall's voice breaks into a whisper, and Louis shivers again. 

"I dunno," he says. "I think... it'll always be good." He breathes heavily for a moment, struggling with too many emotions. "I mean, we're like -- you're just, like -- you're mine, y'know?" 

Niall nods, wide-eyed. The movement makes his stiff cock bob a little between them, which might have made Louis laugh in different circumstances, but right now he can't breathe or look away from Niall's face. 

"You're mine," Niall repeats, reciprocating, trying it out. 

They move to kiss each other at the same time. It feels more like consummation than any of the rest of it, golden and buoyant and huge in Louis' chest. Like a promise. 

"God, let's just get on with it," Niall breathes into his mouth. Louis laughs and settles back. 

"Okay," he says, "I--" but Niall's taking care of it already, slicking himself down with more lube, holding his dick in place for Louis to sit on. "Right," Louis breathes. "You better help," he adds, "I don't--" 

Niall laughs. "Just do it," he says, gentling at Louis' side with his free hand. "I promise not to hurt you." 

Louis takes another breath, then lifts up and pushes, eyes slipping shut, lower lip drawn into his mouth, until the slippery head of Niall’s dick pops into him. 

"Oh god," he whines, sinking down lower. Niall's not all that thick but he feels huge, like he's coring all the way through Louis' body, lighting him up from the center out, dragging moans out of the bottom of his lungs.

Niall's breath catches as Louis lifts up and starts back down again, lower, lower. "You're so beautiful," he murmurs, "oh, fuck. Doing so well, Lou, just like that." 

Louis can only manage a ragged gasp, completely lost in the feeling. Niall's hands are tight on his thighs now, all that's keeping him grounded. Finally he's seated flush against Niall's lap, the curve of his hips spread across Niall's slim waist, and he pitches forward to push his face into Niall's sweaty neck, chest heaving. 

"I love you," he mumbles, just beneath Niall's ear. He doesn't care anymore why this is happening; all that matters is that it is. "I mean -- fuck, I'm in love with you, Niall, I just-- I don't care--" 

Niall makes a strangled noise into Louis' hair, overwhelmed and surprised and joyful. "Louis," he says, "I love you, so much, so glad it was you." 

Louis hiccups a laugh like a sob, rolling his hips a little, holding Niall deep in him. They've totally lost control of this but he can't even think of pulling them back from that line, of trying to be anything less than entirely wrapped up in each other.

"Okay," he says, trying to get his shit together, to focus on the feeling rather than just Niall's words, "let's--" 

"Yeah--"

They move all at once, Louis shifting back and up and Niall bucking to meet him as he sinks down again, and again, until they're fucking properly. Louis bends back to brace himself with his hands on Niall's thighs, little noises punching out of him every time the head of Niall's cock butts up hard against his prostate, shooting sparks along his already overstimulated nerves. 

"Do you want my hand," Niall gasps, and Louis nods frantically. He tips forward again, puts one hand beside Niall's head and the other on the headboard, riding him with sharp snaps of his hips, his thighs quivering hard. Niall reaches between their bodies and slicks him down with the ample precome blurting from the the head of his cock, starts to jack him off, and all at once Louis is right on the edge. 

"Yeah," he breathes, long and harsh, still bouncing in Niall's lap, "fuck, I'm gonna come, Niall -- gonna come on your cock--" 

"Christ, Louis." Niall's hand speeds up, and he thrusts up hard at the same time. Louis' high panting breath draws out, turning into whines and then a cry as he comes, hips stuttering forward, shoving into Niall's hand. He comes for ages, thick ropes onto Niall's stomach, his chest. 

"Fuck," he gasps. His thighs are liquid under him. "I can't, Niall." 

"Let me, I can do it," Niall says, strained. The hand he wasn't using to pull Louis off is tight in the meat of his hip, enough to leave marks. Louis hadn't even noticed. He flops backwards gratefully and Niall sits up with him, pulling out for just a second to get his knees under him and hitch Louis' thighs back and then pushing in again before Louis realizes he's gone. He hauls Louis' hips up with trembling arms, and the slap of skin on skin is distant in Louis' ringing ears, the dull rise of feeling deep in him as Niall fucks him, and he stares up at his face, shoulders shoving back into the mattress on every thrust. 

"C'mon, love," he says, "lemme feel it, Nialler, do it for me." 

"Yeah," Niall gasps, frantic, his hips going erratic, "fuck, _fuck._ " He doubles over, head nearly on Louis' chest as he comes, hot and heavy against the press of the condom inside Louis, his hips flush with Louis' skin. Feeling Niall's orgasm in the wake of his own is enough to send Louis spinning for a moment, light-headed, gasping and floating. 

Niall collapses theatrically against Louis when it's over, letting Louis' hips go to the bed. The head of his softening dick catches on Louis' rim as he slips out, and Louis squirms and sighs, coming back to himself. 

"I feel so good," he mumbles into Niall's shoulder, "but I also hurt everywhere."

"It's a good hurt," Niall says. He rolls to the side, sprawled on his back. "Makes me wanna sleep." 

"Ugh, I'm covered in -- things," Louis grouses amicably. He wants to be snarky, feeling too exposed after everything that just happened, but he's too fucked out to manage it properly. Niall's grinning to himself like he knows exactly where Louis is at. He thumbs at Louis' cheek, looking shy and thoughtful. 

"Good, though, innit?"

"Was," Louis says on nearly a whisper, and then, even quieter: "Thanks."

"Yeah," Niall murmurs. He still looks contemplative, and it's a long time before he speaks again.

"Reckon this could work, you know?" he says softly. 

"What could?" Louis thinks he knows, but he doesn't want to make it easier for Niall to get mushy than is strictly necessary. 

Niall sighs, sweet, and turns over, noses into Louis' collarbone. "This whole thing," he says, muffled against Louis' skin. "Us." 

Louis reaches for him, twirls a finger through his hair where it's long on top. Niall looks up, then nudges in for a kiss, and another against Louis' cheek, the hinge of his jaw. "I want it to," he adds, a quiet admission. Louis breathes in.

"Niall," he says, like an admonishment, but Niall just finds and holds his gaze. There's a hint of challenge there, like, _What are you still scared of?_

Louis doesn't know. He's scared of ruining them, of Niall no longer wanting him, of being alone. But he knows none of those are really rational, with Niall least of anybody. And none are special to their circumstances; they're just love, and all its complications. All that's really left is letting go. 

"Okay," he says finally. "I'm... I'm all in, if you are." 

He expects Niall to laugh -- it's what he wants to do at himself, at the idea of trying to make their commitment to this already involuntary thing official -- but Niall doesn't laugh at all. He just gazes up, hopeful and whole-hearted. "Yeah," he murmurs, "I am."

Louis feels what he's feeling, that deep glowing ache, warm between their bodies, and all he can do is kiss him. So he does, letting out a trembling breath. They hold on tight to each other, even after.

∗


End file.
